A third half for Iranian football

The adventures of Iran’s national football team on its way to qualifying for the World Cup have provoked some very public reactions in a society normally characterised by its silences. Watching the games and reading the commentators, it became apparent that crucial issues were being played out: the aspiration to alternative lifestyles, Iran’s re-entry into the society of nations, the debate on cultural openness versus “invasion”, and the place of women in Iranian society.

In Iran, town-dwellers are developing a habit of living double
lives. Outside, people are expected to go round looking serious and
sombre, keeping their voices low, not raising their eyes, and
conforming to the Islamic “look”. But come the evening, behind closed
doors, there is conviviality, humour, bright colours, parties, music,
dancing, Western videos and sometimes alcoholic drinks. The pattern
these days is radically different from - in fact, more or less the
reverse of - the situation in the days of the shah. As a friend
remarked a few years ago, “Before the Revolution, I used to go out in
order to party with friends and I did my praying at home. Now you do
your prayers in the mosque and you do your partying at home.”

When it comes to writing the recent history of popular sentiment
and their forms of expression, a history at least as important as the
study of election results, 8 Azar 1376 (29 November 1997) will come
to be seen as a turning point - the day when imposed social codes
began to turn into something else and enforced dichotomies began to
crack. As soon as people heard the result of the Iran-Australia match
(a draw, which ensured Iran’s qualification for the final phase of
the World Cup), the broad avenues of Tehran and the more modest
streets of provincial towns were transformed into scenes of carnival
and festivity.

Men and women - especially young women from the better-off
neighbourhoods - sang and danced and shouted for joy until night
fell. Here and there, bemused rowhani (clerics), policemen and
basiji (volunteers dealing with civic order) were invited by
the revellers to join in the dancing. Car horns sounded and
windscreen wipers were decorated with paper. Joy (farhang-e
khoshali), which up until that point had been repressed and
confined to the privacy of people’s private homes, now spilled out
into public spaces.

From the poor neighbourhoods of south Tehran to the wealthy villas
in the north of the city, and to the four corners of the Persian
diaspora, Iran was being celebrated with a nationalist fervour and a
sense that the country was about to take on the world - the kind of
feeling which transcends social and political differences. The nation
was standing up for itself, pushing into the background the current
debates and demonstrations on the legitimacy of the velayat-e
faqih (the concept of the Guardianship of the Jurists), which had
the supporters of the Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, lined up in
opposition to those of Ayatollah Montazeri.

Slogans, graffiti and symbols all expressed a new sense of
national pride: Mellat-e sharif-ye Iran mobarak!
(Congratulations to the noble people of Iran!) In some places,
supporters were invited to pass under a huge Iranian flag. This was a
symbolic substitute for passing under a copy of the Koran, the ritual
whereby travellers (and footballers coming out of changing rooms) are
placed under the protection of the holy book.

The upsurge of popular sentiment during these improvised national
festivities incurred the disapproval of radicals and conservatives
alike. One commentator offered an ironic view of the meaning of it
all. “It’s not really so serious if a few cars get wrecked in these
outbursts of enthusiasm, is it? And if our culture’s being
undermined, who really cares? Even Iranians living in the United
States are happy about our victory! What we need is to create an even
more powerful organisation, which will show everyone the merits of
the ball: being black and white and round must be a good thing since
it has made us jahani [world-scale, universal]!”

Major issues are at stake here, and it is no wonder that it has
stirred controversy. The chaotic route taken by the national team on
their way to World Cup qualification is a kind of parable of the
difficulties faced by Iran as it attempts to re-enter the world of
international relations: it took Iran a full seventeen matches (a
record) before it finally came in as the last country to qualify (in
the closing minutes of the deciding match against Australia).

Iran has not competed in the World Cup since 1978. But now we see
it qualifying for the world volleyball championships (after a 28-year
absence), and sending a representative to the Winter Olympics (after
a 22-year gap). The Takhti Cup (named after the free-style wrestling
champion in the Melbourne Olympics of 1956) offers another example of
this diplomatic-cum-sporting reappearance. Held on 19-21 February
1998, in association with ceremonies commemorating the Revolution and
a few weeks after President Khatami’s celebrated interview with CNN,
this event brought together Iranian and American wrestlers (the first
visit by US athletes since 1979).

Political controversy

Iran’s hiring policy for coaches and the issue of football
transfers symbolise the new spirit of openness: in a major break with
the past, the national squad has, since November 1997, been trained
by a foreign coach (as was generally the case under the shah). The
Brazilian Valdeir Vieira, who led the team to victory against
Australia, has been succeeded by a Croatian, Tomislav Ivic, who is
now trying to improve the defensive aspect of a team which is seen as
excellent in terms of technique and drive, but somewhat lacking when
it comes to tactics and physical condition.

A number of the country’s best players have gone overseas in
recent years, selling their services in Singapore and the Arab
Emirates, but now they are also making their mark in the prestigious
German Bundesliga (1) : Karim Bagheri and
Ali Da’i play for Bielefeld, and Khodadad (Gift of God) Azizi, the hero of the deciding goal in the match with Australia, now graces the Cologne side. Iranians love
puns, and as well as making much of Azizi’s first name, they enjoy
the tantalising similarity between the phrase jam-e jahani
(World Cup) and jame’e jahani (world society).

The whole of Iran’s political leadership, including the nation’s
Leader, the president and the president of parliament (the very
conservative Nateq-Nuri), were eager to congratulate the national
team on their success in qualifying. People who only a few months
previously had denounced “football mania” as an artificial construct
of sporting imperialism - in pamphlets reminiscent of leftist
diatribes against religion as the opium of the masses - took on a
more subdued tone in the face of this massive national consensus.

A variety of people tried to benefit from the team’s success. For
instance, during Friday prayers Ayatollah Janati was at pains to
remind the footballers that it was God who had made them win against
Australia. However, both before and after these moments of consensus,
the ups and downs of the national team were the subject of, and a
pretext for, sharp political words among the clans occupying the
upper echelons of the state.

In early November 1997, following Iran’s disastrous defeat at the
hands of Qatar (seriously threatening the country’s chances of
qualifying), conservative members of parliament, supported by
Nateq-Nuri, called for steps to be taken against the vice-president
of the republic, Hashemi Taba, a moderate in charge of physical
education. In their eyes, he was guilty of not having moved soon
enough to replace the teams’ disputed coach, Mayeli Kohan. The
offending parties, including the coach, were summoned before
parliament to account for themselves. Then, once the euphoria of
qualifying had passed, the choice of Iran’s new coach-to-be further
fuelled polemics: radicals opposed the hiring of a foreigner and
there were protests against the invitation extended to the United
States to compete in the Takhti Cup.

In Iran, sport has always been inseparable from politics. As in
the days of the shah, the heads of Iran’s sporting federations are
not elected but appointed; and they are chosen not on the basis of
professional ability, but in relation to their proximity to governing
circles. Under the shah, the heads of the Football Federation were
generally drawn from the military; and today this remains a political
appointment.

As for the clubs themselves, as in the former Eastern bloc, most
of them are attached to institutions of one kind or another. These
may be the police, the army, a ministry, or a governmental
organisation. They may also be large industrial concerns, or
revolutionary foundations (although this is not always the most
reliable of affiliations - the Martyrs’ Foundation recently had to
hand their team over to a private company). Although it is not usual,
they may even be ethnic minorities. For instance, Tehran’s Armenian
club, Ararat, has doggedly succeeded in preserving its own premises,
tournaments and distinctive style of play. But, here too, there are
signs of a shift to world standards.

Leaving aside the immediate arguments, more significant tensions
are beginning to develop between cultural traditionalism and cultural
modernity. Iran’s national sport is wrestling, which goes back to the
customary institution of zurkhane (literally “strong house”),
where people go to socialise and engage in athletic exercise. The
wrestler has a two-fold image: that of the strong-man in popular
culture (in Persian the term is “big neck”), and also the
pahlavan, the knightly hero who is a free-living spirit,
generous and loyal to his associates.

The image of the footballer, on the other hand, is that of a
modern-style champion (ghahreman), who dreams of playing for
Manchester United and whose model is Ronaldo. The two sports are not
necessarily contradictory (plenty of older Iranians are fans of
both), but they are in competition, and there is no doubt that
wrestling is progressively being eclipsed by football (much to the
chagrin of the wrestlers).

"We are not ants"

The ascendancy of the footballer in some ways symbolises political
developments in Iran - and not just in a metaphorical sense.
Nateq-Nuri, the unsuccessful conservative candidate in the May 1997
presidential election, was himself a zurkhane devotee in his
youth and was supported by wrestling champions (Ghadem and Jadidi)
during his campaign. It is not that President Khatami represents
footballing interests, even if he did allow himself the odd game on a
Friday in younger days. However, the young people and the women among
his supporters are more interested in the present exploits of Azizi
than the past exploits of Ghadem. But the president did meet Ghadem
after his election, obviously mindful of the symbolic complementarity
of strong arms and fancy footwork.

The make-up of the national team - and the debate surrounding it -
provide another interesting lesson in sociology. The team’s driving
forces are recruited mainly from the Azerbaijani Turks (often the
better defenders), Khuzestan Arabs forced into exile by the 1980-88
Iran-Iraq war (who tend to be good in attacking positions), and youth
from the popular quarters and southern suburbs of Tehran. The capital
provides a good nursery for young players, who start life playing in
the streets with small makeshift goals, or on pieces of waste land.
The teams also have one or two players from the Ararat club, who at
one time were kept out by a selector reputed to be an Islamist. In
order both to be selected and to succeed, the players generally have
to be part of the Tehran scene, because that is where the best clubs
and the best players are to be found.

In a country where the authorities are obsessed with the sexual
segregation of public spaces and covering up of the female body, the
organisation of sporting events is a major preoccupation. The only
sports in which women are allowed to take part before male spectators
are shooting, horse-riding, canoeing, mountaineering, skiing and
competitions for the handicapped. Unlike athletics or swimming, all
these can be practised more or less in regulation Islamic dress. But
even these small victories are very recent, and have been contested
at every step by protesting fundamentalists.

The organisation of football matches is also problematical: women
have been banned from football stadiums since the Revolution, even
though the games are relayed on the country’s TV sports channel and
no fatwa exists to ratify this ban. During the Iran-Australia away
match there was only one women among the 120,000 spectators
supporting their team, and she was the correspondent of an Italian
press agency who had managed to get permission, albeit only after
endless negotiations. The arrival of a foreign woman intent on
photographing the national team in training raised similar dilemmas
for the team’s managers.

However, a significant breach has been opened in this wall
separating the sexes. This happened on the occasion of the national
team’s return to Iran after qualifying in Australia. Several thousand
women, mostly young, invaded the Azadi ("Freedom") stadium where the
national heroes were being welcomed, even though the media had called
on its “sisters” to stay at home and watch it on TV. Needless to say,
the rebel women did not feature in the TV footage. “Aren’t we part of
this nation? We want to celebrate too. We aren’t ants!”. The women
made their point of view known, and in the end a solution was found
by segregating them in one part of the stadium. At the instigation of
Faezeh Rafsanjani (2), it is likely that a compromise solution will
be arrived at, along lines similar to the segregation strictly
applied on buses, in the universities etc.

In 1993, in the home game in the Asian Cup which matched the
Tehran team, Pirouzi, against a team sponsored by Japan’s Nissan,
there were no advertising hoardings on the pitch. Instead there were
large placards reading “Down with the USA!” and “Israel must be
destroyed!” Since then the tone has been noticeably moderated as
regards the USA, and football managers have tried to present the
forthcoming game between Iran and the United States as a purely
sporting event. This is part of the love-hate relationship which
Iranians have with the US. But they still say that there is no chance
of the Iranian team playing Israel.

As luck would have it, in this phase of the World Cup, Iran will
be meeting Yugoslavia and Germany, two countries that have been the
source of friction in the recent past. Iranians actively supported
their fellow Muslims in their fight against Serbian aggression, and
it was emblematic that they moved fast to organise a friendly match
against Bosnia. Germany, on the other hand, was recently “demonised”
following the trial arising out of the so-called “Mykonos affair”,
which drew attention to the role of the Iranian government in the
murder of Kurdish opposition figures and led to European ambassadors
being recalled from Tehran (although they were subsequently
returned).

It is hard to imagine a draw that better illustrates the tensions
underlying the new openness to the world symbolised by Iran’s
qualifying for the World Cup.

(2) Daughter of ex-President Rafsanjani, vice-president of the
Iranian Olympic committee and a key figure in the Sport for Women
from Muslim Countries event, the second of which was held in Tehran
in December 1997. See Azadeh Khian, “Des femmes iraniennes contre le
clergé”, Le Monde diplomatique, November 1996, “Iranian
women against the clergy”, available in the English Internet
edition..